Meint K. Smit has been given a life-time achievement award in recognition of his contributions to the development of a vibrant Indium Phosphide PIC ecosystem in Europe. He was recognised by international leaders in the Photonics Industry. The PIC Awards are an initiative of PIC International, the leading conference and journal specialising in next generation photonic integrated circuits. Thousands of votes were received, with the results being announced in Brussels on March 7th 2017.
Jonathan Marks took the opportunity to find out more about Meint Smit and his passion for optics and nanotechnologies. In this profile, he discusses what’s coming next and why this phase is important for both research and industry.
The story so far “We’ve analysed the success of microelectronics. Now we’re putting those lessons learned to work for integrated photonics” says Professor Meint Smit of Eindhoven University of Technology.
The development of silicon based microelectronics means today it costs only a few cents to design and develop per square millimetre of chip, as the technology is mature and highly standardized. In addition, its development costs are low because we have sophisticated software for the fast and accurate design of the chips.
Teams at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), led by Professor Meint Smit, want the same for photonic devices. And now that tipping point has been reached.
“Around the start of this new century, we were all asking ourselves: when is photonics integration really going to take off in the same way as silicon micro-electronics?” explains Smit. “After all, in 1980 I had started saying it would kick start in the 1990. Ten years later, the tipping point had moved to the start of the new millennium. By that time, some critics started to say that the promise of photonics integration would always remain in the future.”
